“In the end, taxes are paid by the consumers and they generally balance out based on your level of consumption, regardless of the gimmicks in the system.”
I’m not sure I understand your point, but if you are suggesting that taxes “balance out” in proportion to consumption under the current system, then I would suggest otherwise. Because of all the “loopholes” under the current system, there are numerous examples of inequities. A friend of mine is a CPA who does some very high end tax returns. He told me that he sees cases all the time where a transaction can have entirely different tax consequences depending on the legal form of the entity involved.
I have often thought that if someone attempted to write a book describing the inefficiencies, inequities and illogical aspects of the Internal Revenue Code, it would be longer than War and Peace.
The whole point behind the complexity of the US Tax Code is so that the rules can be applied differently for different people and entities.
It is from this unequal applications that politicians derive their power.
The money to pay taxes always comes from the consumer. There is no other source for income, even investment and speculative income ultimately comes from the consumer. The path may be convoluted at times, but if you persist in tracing the source of income, it will always end up back at the consumer. If nothing is ultimately consumed, there is no source of income.
Under the current system, the consumer provides the funds to pay taxes for the entities (persons or business) down the revenue stream. The funds are paid as taxes in various forms along the revenue stream.
There are oportunities to transfer more to the government than necessary along that revenue stream. I am, of course, referring only to legal methods. It is similar to buying a car. Some people go into the dealership and pay sticker. Some people bargain. Some people use leases or business entities to alter the cost. The people paying sticker are doing so by choice or ignorance, but they do have alternatives available. So there are variations around the norm of what money is transferred to the government.
The second aspect of limiting how much is transferred to the government is in the area of alternative investment. A person or entity can choose to invest time or money into a direct effor to reduce payment to the government. Just as coupons can be used to lower the grocery bill, there are methods to reduce the tax transfer. Some people never use coupons while others invest hours collecting coupons and make good use of them. The hours invested have a value and they represent an alternative investment. Works out well for some people and more power to them. Essentially though, the entity is using an alternative form of investment. This creates a degree of variability however, the total financial picture must be examined including the alternative investment in computing the savings, not just the amount of tax avoided. This reduces the variability by quite a bit. For example, the CPA ends up transferring some of those tax funds to the government rather than the original entity. The money still comes from the end consumer though, it just took one more alternative stream on its way to the government.
So, yes, the consumer is the person actually providing the revenue to be transferred to the government. Also yes, there can be variability in the stream as that reveneue heads to the government. Even under the Fair Tax system, there will be variability. If you negotiate a lower price for something, you have in essence lowered your tax burden.